Desperate to escape from the disease, she gripped Tas’s hand and raced across the portico and down the stairs. She was frantic to reach the forum and the safety of the palace. She heard Aricia limping after her, calling for her to stop.
Tas struggled to keep pace. “Not so fast, Semni.” She didn’t heed him until he tripped, falling onto his knees. She halted, helping him to his feet, aghast his flesh was skinned raw from the cobblestones.
“I’m sorry,” she said, lifting him into her arms. He wrapped his legs around her waist, his arms around her neck, and rested his head upon her shoulder. He was heavy compared to Nerie. She placed her hands under his bottom, bearing his weight.
Aricia caught up, catching her breath.
Semni glanced back to the crowd in the sanctuary. “That child has the red scourge. I suffered from it when I was young. One of my brothers died from the same. Do you think there will be a plague?”
Aricia grimaced. “You’ve been spoiled living within the palace. The sickness is everywhere. Why do you think there’s a crush to seek divine protection? If it’s not to cure the pestilence, it’s to make offerings for those who have died. Here on the citadel where the rich live, you can’t see the heartbreak. But go below into the streets and marketplaces of the city, and you’ll see only despair and desolation.”
She pointed to the huge cistern in the square. “Look around you. We’ve water but no food. The enemy blockades were tightened after the king’s army broke through them. And those supplies that were bartered through the stockades for a time weren’t enough to feed a city. Veii is teeming with people. Peasants from the countryside have fled behind its walls to seek protection from the Romans who ravage their farms. The grain ration is too scant to sate hunger. The cattle have long ago been eaten. Now dogs and cats and even rodents have become food. Any bird that flies over the city is shot down. Some citizens are reduced to boiling nettles and eating snails and insects. If the king does not deliver us soon, the only rites recited will be those for funerals.”
Semni stared at her in horror, then surveyed the double gates of Uni at the end of the forum. A line of people was queued on the single road from the city. More of the ill, more of the anxious, more of those seeking hope.
She eased Tas to the ground, aware their conversation would be frightening him. He clutched her skirt, observing the crowd, eyes troubled. “Come on,” she urged. “I need to get you home.”
Reaching the steps of the palace, Semni could see Aricia’s confidence fading. The novice gazed with apprehension at the huge bronze-studded doors at the entrance. Semni was filled with sympathy for the girl. Tas had embroiled her in a predicament that was none of her doing. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to be seen. Let’s go around to the service lane.”
Aricia bit her lip. “No. I should make it clear to Lady Caecilia that I had no part in the prince’s outing.”
Semni wished that Cytheris could see how earnest her daughter was to prove she’d mended her ways. She rested her hand on her arm. “This is not the best time to press your case. I’ll give Lady Tanchvil’s letter to the queen and also tell her you were not at fault.”
“But don’t you want me to assure Lady Caecilia that you weren’t involved?”
Semni hesitated. She’d not thought that she might be seen as complicit. Yet the high priestess’s letter should also absolve her of being a conspirator. “No, it’s best you go.”
Aricia bent down and gave Tas a hug.
He clung to her neck. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“Promise me you’ll never try and see me again, my pet.”
Semni felt pity for the girl again. She reached across and pecked Aricia’s cheek after she extracted the prince. “Good-bye, my friend.”
Aricia smiled. “It means much that you think of me fondly.”
The sudden shouts of male voices drowned out further conversation. Semni turned. Foreboding in their black uniforms, Arruns and two lictors raced down the palace steps. The Phoenician glowered at the two girls. Under his scrutiny, Aricia backed away and then limped as fast as she could toward the sanctuary.
Trembling at the approach of the guards, Tas gripped Semni’s hand. “I think I’ve made a big mistake.”
THIRTY-ONE
Semni was fuming as she settled Thia into her cot. Arruns had refused to speak to her. Instead he’d turned on his heel, not waiting for her to catch up as he strode into the palace.
Cytheris was similarly unimpressed when she sighted Semni and Tas. She snatched the boy’s hand away from her. “Where have you been? Half the palace guard has been looking for you and the prince!”
At least Lady Caecilia had not judged Semni without hearing the full tale. The queen’s relief at seeing her eldest son safely home had soon been replaced with shock when she heard where he’d been. She had scanned Lady Tanchvil’s missive, her brow creasing in realization that the prince had once again been drawn to Aricia like iron filings to a lodestone. The dismay in her round hazel eyes was painful to watch.
After hugging her son, Lady Caecilia had then berated him and decreed his punishment. The boy was sent to bed with a sore bottom after Arruns dispensed a spanking. Despite showing bravery enough to traverse a forbidden room and the pitch black of a tunnel, the child’s courage failed him at the hard edge of the lictor’s hand. At each slap he’d sobbed. His mother had sat white faced and tense but did not rescind her sentence.
Semni patted and rubbed Thia’s back until the baby closed her eyes and was ready to be placed in her cradle. Then she lay down beside Nerie, who was fast asleep on her bed. He’d been fretful tonight. Usually content to have his place usurped by the princess at his mother’s breast, he’d been possessive, trying to push Thia away and sit on Semni’s lap alone.
Sleep eluded her. She was seething that Arruns had assumed her guilty. Even when he’d heard Tas’s admission, he’d not apologized.
She drew on her chiton and shoved her feet into slippers. Crossing pools of light and shadow in the torchlit hallways, she navigated her way to the barracks. She dragged the curtain open to Arruns’s cell door, then swept it closed behind her.
He was sharpening his dagger in the lamplight, the metal scraping rhythmically against whetstone. He stood when he saw her, frowning.
Semni launched herself at him, shoving him. “Why do you always think the worst of me?”
He staggered back a step, caught off balance by the surprise of her attack. Not waiting for a reply, she pummeled him on the chest with puny fists. “I went to retrieve Tas. I didn’t take him to the temple!”